Methods of fabricating high-reliability and high-efficiency trench isolation for semiconductor devices

ABSTRACT

The trench-isolation structures for fabricating semiconductor devices using two different multilayer masking structures are disclosed by the present invention, in which the extended buffer spacers located in the isolation regions are formed on the sidewalls of two different multilayer masking structures having a masking dielectric layer on a pad-oxide layer and a masking dielectric layer on a conductive layer over a gate-oxide layer. The extended buffer spacers not only act as the etching mask for forming the trenches in the semiconductor substrate but also play significant roles for obtaining high-reliability and high-efficiency trench isolation of the present invention. The first role of the extended buffer spacers of the present invention is to offer the buffer regions for preventing the bird&#39;s beak formation around the edge of the active region during the thermal oxidation of the trench surface, so that the active area used to fabricate the active device is not sacrificed. The second role of the extended buffer spacers of the present invention is to create the buffer regions in the semiconductor substrate for the field-encroachment implant, so that much better efficiency of trench isolation can be obtained without reducing the active area. The third role of the extended buffer spacers of the present invention is to offer the capping-dielectric layers near the edges of the trench corners for eliminating the leakage due to the sharp trench corners. Therefore, the present invention may offer high-reliability and high-efficiency isolation for advance high-density integrated-circuit fabrication with maximized active area and minimized isolation area.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention

[0002] The invention relates generally to semiconductor integrated-circuit manufacturing and more particularly to the formation of trench isolation for active devices on a semiconductor substrate.

[0003] 2. Description of Related Art

[0004] The shallow-trench-isolation (STI) becomes a major isolation technique for deep-submicrometer semiconductor devices in very high-density integrated circuits. The major advantages of the STI technique over the conventional LOCOS technique are smaller isolation area, smaller thermal budget and better planarized surface for fine-line lithography.

[0005] However, there are still several problems appeared in existing shallow-trench-isolation techniques. These problems can be found from U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,615 by Fazan et al., as shown in FIG. 1. The oxide spacers 5 are formed on the sidewalls of the planarized filling isolation-oxide layer 4 and are located in the active regions having the pad-oxide layer 2 over the semiconductor substrate 1, as shown in FIG. 1A, and FIG. 1A is then etched to remove the pad-oxide layer 2 and to simultaneously etch the oxide spacers 5. The small rounded caps or domes 4A are remained over the trench comers for eliminating the leakage current due to the sharp comers, as shown in FIG. 1B. Apparently, the caps or domes 4A formed in FIG. 1B are quite similar to the bird's beaks of the conventional LOCOS isolation technique and the active area is sacrificed by the regions covered with the formed oxide spacers 5. Moreover, the oxide spacers 5 are formed on the sidewalls of planarized filling isolation-oxides 4 and both materials are oxides, the height and the width of the oxide spacers 5 become difficulty to be controlled using anisotropic dry etching, resulting in the variations of the shape of the formed caps or domes 4A. In addition, no field encroachments are performed for the semiconductor surface of the oxidized trench and the semiconductor surface under the formed caps or domes in order to reduce the surface leakage currents.

[0006] Basically, the thermal oxidation of the trenched monocrystalline-silicon surface is needed in order to eliminate the trench etching-induced defects and, therefore, the bird's beak formation due to the thermal oxidation of existing trench isolation structures is inevitable. Although the trench comers are slightly rounded up through the thermal oxidation of the trenched surface, the comer tips must be properly capped to eliminate the field emission due to the trench corners without sacrificing the active area and the planarization of topography. Moreover, a proper field-encroachment implant is needed in order to eliminate the double-hump current-voltage characteristics of devices formed in the active regions due to the surface inversion layer formed near the edges of the sharp comers and the excess leakage current due to the trench surface.

[0007] It is therefore an objective of the present invention to substantially eliminate these described problems together by creating the buffer spacers in the trench-isolation regions. As a consequence, the thermal oxidation of the trench surface and the field-encroachment implant can be performed by the trench-isolation structure of the present invention without sacrificing the active area, and high-reliability and high-efficiency isolation for devices can be obtained.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0008] The invention uses two multilayer masking structures formed separately on the monocrystalline-semiconductor substrates for efficient trench isolation. The first multilayer masking structure consists of a masking dielectric layer on a pad-oxide layer; the second multilayer masking structure consists of a masking dielectric layer on a conductive layer over a thin silicon-oxide layer. The multilayer masking structure is patterned and then etched anisotropically in a self-aligned manner to remove the multilayer masking structure for forming the isolation regions. The extended buffer spacers are formed on the sidewalls of the remained multilayer masking structure and the exposed monocrystalline-silicon substrates are then etched to form the shallow trenches. The thermal oxidation of the etched trench surface is performed to form a thin thermal-oxide layer and the oxidized trench surface is implanted by a rotated large-tilt-angle implantation method to form field-encroachment implant regions. A trench-filling dielectric layer is then deposited to fill over the etched multilayer masking structure and the planarization using the chemical-mechanical-polishing (CMP) technique is performed to remove the excess trench-filling dielectric layer over the masking dielectric layer. The planarized trench-filling dielectric layer is anisotropically etched to a depth slightly higher than the height of the pad-oxide for the first multilayer masking structure and to a depth approximately equal to the thickness of the masking dielectric layer for the second multilayer masking structure, and then both the masking dielectric layers are removed. The pad-oxide layer is removed anisotropically for the first multilayer masking structure and the capping-dielectric layers due to the extended buffer spacers are remained on the corners of the etched trenches, then a gate-oxide layer is formed thermally and a conductive layer acted as the gate is deposited; however, for the second multilayer masking structure the second conductive layer is deposited. Both planarized structures are ready to define the gate lengths and further to form the source and drain diffusion regions of devices using the well-known techniques. Apparently, the extended buffer layers are formed in the isolation regions and the active area is not sacrificed. Moreover, the thermal-oxide layer grown on the trench surface and the field-encroachment implant of the trench surface are all located under the extended buffer spacers in the isolation regions without sacrificing the active area and the surface planarization. Therefore, high-reliability and high-efficiency trench isolation for scaled devices can be easily obtained by the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0009]FIGS. 1A and 1B show the partial cross-sectional views of a shallow-trench-isolation structure of the prior art in which the oxide-spacers and the caps or domes are formed in the active regions and the sidewalls of the planarized filling isolation-oxides;

[0010]FIGS. 2A and 2B show the partial cross-sectional views of two shallow-trench-isolation structures of the present invention in which the extended buffer spacers are formed in the isolation regions;

[0011]FIGS. 3A through 3I show the partial cross-sectional views of the isolation structure and the processes of the first embodiment of the present invention; and

[0012]FIGS. 4A through 4F show the partial cross-sectional views of the isolation structure and the processes of the second embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0013] Referring now to FIG. 2, FIG. 2A shows the first embodiment of the present invention, in which a first multilayer masking structure consisting of a first masking dielectric layer on a first pad-oxide layer is used; FIG. 2B shows the second embodiment of the present invention, in which a second multilayer masking structure consisting of a second masking dielectric layer on a second conductive layer over a second thin gate-oxide layer is used. The detailed fabrication processes and their cross-sectional views of the first and second embodiments of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, are described below.

[0014] Referring now to FIG. 3A through FIG. 3I, there are shown the fabrication process steps and their cross-sectional views of the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3A shows a first pad-oxide layer 101 is thermally grown on a monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100. The monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100 can be a retrograde p-well formed or a retrograde n-well formed or regrograde twin-wells formed in a monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100. For simplicity, the monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100 shown in FIG. 3A is a p-type substrate or a retrograde p-well. The first boron implantation is performed across the first pad-oxide layer 101 into the surface of the monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100 to adjust the threshold-voltage of devices and the second boron implantation can also be performed to form the punch-through stops if needed. These implants are indicated by a dash line 102 shown in FIG. 3A. The first masking dielectric layer 103 is deposited on a first pad-oxide layer 101. The first masking dielectric layer 103 is preferably made of silicon-nitrides deposited by low-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition (LPCVD), which is used as a hard mask for etching the trenches. The well-known photoresist PR1 is deposited and patterned to define the width of the isolation region λ, as shown in FIG. 3A, where λ is the minimum-feature-size of technology used.

[0015] Through the patterned masking photoresist PR1, the masking dielectric layer 103 is anisotropically etched by reactive-ion etching and then the patterned photoresist PR1 is stripped by well-known oxygen plasma. The first pad-oxide layer 101 is then selectively removed by anisotropic dry etch or well-known wet etch by using the etched first masking dielectric layer 103 a as the etching mask. A first conformable dielectric layer 104 is deposited over the etched first multilayer masking structure, as shown in FIG. 3B. The first conformable dielectric layer 104 is preferably a conformable silicon-oxide layer deposited by using thermal decomposition of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and the thickness of the first conformable dielectric layer 104 is preferably between about 150 to 400 Angstroms.

[0016] The first conformable dielectric layer 104 shown in FIG. 3B is anisotropically etched back to form the extended buffer-spacers 104 a on the sidewalls of the etched first multilayer masking structure, as shown in FIG. 3C, followed by anisotropically etching the exposed monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100 to a depth of between about 2000 to 5000 Angstroms to form the trenches. The etched monocrystalline-semiconductor surface of the trenches is then oxidized to form a first thermal-oxide layer 105. The thickness of the first thermal-oxide layer 105 is preferably between 50 to 150 Angstroms and this oxidation process is needed to eliminate the trench etching-induced defects. The field-encroachment implant is then performed by implanting boron impurities into the trench surface regions of the oxidized monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate to form the implanted regions 102 b and the surface regions under the extended buffer spacers 104 a to form the implanted regions 102 c, as shown in FIG. 3D. It is clearly seen from FIG. 3D that the extended buffer spacers 104 a are formed in the isolation regions and are acted as the buffer layers for oxidizing the trench surface and performing the field-encroachment implant without affecting the active area.

[0017] A first trench-filling dielectric layer 106 is deposited over the structure surface shown in FIG. 3D and followed by planarizing the formed structure surface using chemical-mechanical-polishing (CMP) to remove the excess first trench-filling dielectric layer with the first masking dielectric layer 103 a used as the polishing stop, as shown in FIG. 3E. The first trench-filling dielectric layer 106 can be deposited by high-density plasma CVD (HDPCVD) or other CVD and is preferably a thick silicon-oxide film using TEOS or silane as a silicon source. The planarized first trench-filling layers 106 are then etched by using anisotropic dry etching or well-known wet-chemical etching in a self-aligned manner to a depth slightly smaller than the thickness of the first masking dielectric layer 103 a, as shown in FIG. 3F, and then the first masking dielectric layers 103 a are removed by wet-chemical etching or anisotropic dry etching, as shown in FIG. 3G. It is clearly seen that a step between the first pad-oxide layer 101 a and the remained first trench-filling dielectric 106 is formed and this step is important to form the caps over the corners of the trenches without sacrificing the planarization of the isolation structure.

[0018] The first pad-oxide layers 101 a are removed by well-known wet-chemical etching or anisotropic dry etching and the caps are remained on the corners of the trenches, as shown in FIG. 3H. A first thin gate-oxide layer 107 is then thermally grown on the exposed monocrystalline-semiconductor surface, as shown in FIG. 3I. The first conductive layer 108 preferably a polycrystalline-silicon layer or an amorphous-silicon layer, which is acted as a conductive gate, is deposited by using LPCVD, as shown in FIG. 2A.

[0019] Apparently, the extended buffer spacers of the present invention are formed in the isolation regions and are also acted as the buffer layers for the thermal oxidation and the field-encroachment implant of the trench surface without sacrificing the active area. Moreover, the extended buffer spacers are also used to form the caps over the corners of the trenches to eliminate the leakage current from the trench corners due to field emission. In addition, since the semiconductor surface under the caps and the trench surface are properly implanted, the double-hump I-V characteristics of devices fabricated in the active region due to the surface inversion under the caps can be eliminated, the surface leakage currents due to the surface depletion regions and the interface traps of the trench surface can be much reduced, and the inverse narrow-width effects appeared in U. S. Pat. No. 5,966,615 due to the depletion charges under the oxide-spacers in the active regions can be much reduced for narrow-width devices and the conventional narrow-width effects appeared in the prior arts having no oxide-spacers can also be much reduced by the proper control of the width of the extended buffer spacers.

[0020] Referring now to FIG. 4A through 4F, there are shown the fabrication 9 process steps and their cross-sectional views of the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4A shows a second multilayer masking structure formed on a monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100 having the surface implants for threshold-voltage adjustment or punch-through stops if needed, as described in the first embodiment of the present invention. A second thin gate-oxide layer 201 is formed thermally over the monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100 and a second conductive layer 202 preferably a polycrystalline-silicon layer or an amorphous-silicon layer is deposited on the grown second thin gate-oxide layer 201 using LPCVD, followed by depositing a second masking dielectric layer 203 using LPCVD. The second masking dielectric layer 203 is preferably a silicon-nitride layer. The second masking photoresist PR2 is patterned to define the width of the isolation regions λ, where λ is the minimum-feature-size of the technology used, and the second masking dielectric layer 203 is anisotropically removed by using dry etching and the patterned second masking photoresist PR2 is then stripped. The second conductive layer 202 is anisotropically removed in a self-aligned manner using dry etching, followed by selectively removing the second thin gate-oxide layer 201 using either anisotropic dry etching or wet-chemical etching. A second conformable dielectric layer 204 is formed by LPCVD and is preferably a conformable silicon-oxide layer deposited by LPCVD using thermal decomposition of TEOS, as shown in FIG. 4B. The second conformable dielectric layer 204 is then anisotropically etched back to form the second extended buffer spacers 204 a on the sidewalls of the etched second multilayer masking structure, as shown in FIG. 4C, followed by etching the exposed monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100 to a depth of approximately between about 2000 to 5000 Angstroms to form the second shallow trenches. The formed second shallow trenches are then oxidized to form a second thin thermal-oxide layer 205 over the exposed trench surface, followed by implanting boron impurities into the trench surface of the monocrystalline-semiconductor substrate 100 to form the field-encroachment implant regions 200 b, as shown in FIG. 4D. The field-encroachment implant can be performed by using a rotated large-tilt-angle implantation technique.

[0021] A second trench-filling dielectric film 206 is deposited over the formed structure and the CMP is then performed to planarize the structure surface by removing the excess second trench-filling dielectric film 206 over the second masking dielectric layer 203 a and the second masking dielectric layers 203 a are acted as the polishing stop, as shown in FIG. 4E. The second trench-filling dielectric film 206 can be preferably a conformable thick silicon-oxide film deposited preferably by using high-density plasma CVD, as described in the first embodiment of the present invention.

[0022] The planarized second trench-filling dielectric film 206 and the extended buffer spacers 204 a shown in FIG. 4E are anisotropically etched in a self-aligned manner to a depth of approximately the thickness of the second masking dielectric layer 203 a, as shown in FIG. 4F, then followed by removing the masking dielectric layer 203 a using wet-chemical etching or anisotropic dry etching. The structure surface formed becomes very flat and a third conductive layer 207 preferably a polycrystalline-silicon layer or a polycide layer or a metal layer is then deposited, as shown in FIG. 2B. It is clearly seen from FIG. 2B that the described major advantages of the first embodiment of the present invention are still valid for the second embodiment of the present invention. However, the planarization of the formed structure surface of the second embodiment of the present invention is better than that of the first embodiment of the present invention for fine-line lithography.

[0023] The embodiments shown in FIG. 2 through FIG. 4 use a p-type substrate or a p-well formed for demonstration only. It should be well understood by those skilled in the art that the opposite doping type of the substrate or the well can also be used to simultaneously fabricate the opposite conductivity type of devices by using the methods as disclosed by the present invention with only slight modification of the implant doping type.

[0024] While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to the preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of fabricating a trench isolation structure for semiconductor devices having the extended buffer spacers formed in the isolation regions to offer the buffer regions for oxidizing the trench surface, forming the field-encroachment implant regions and capping the corners of the trenches without sacrificing the active area, comprising the steps of: providing a semiconductor substrate; forming a multilayer masking structure at least consisting a masking dielectric layer deposited on the top; patterning said multilayer masking structure through the patterned masking photoresist to define said isolation regions followed by anisotropically etching said masking dielectric layer to form the etching mask and then stripping said patterned masking photoresist; etching anisotropically the remained layer or layers of said multilayer masking structure in said isolation regions; depositing a conformable dielectric layer and forming said extended buffer spacers on the sidewalls of the removed layer or layers of said multilayer masking structure in said isolation regions by using etch-back technique; etching anisotropically said semiconductor substrate to form said trenches using said masking dielectric layer and said extended buffer spacers as the etching mask; oxidizing said trench surface to form a thin thermal-oxide layer to eliminate the trench etching-induced defects; performing field-encroachment implant into said trench surface of said semiconductor substrate and the surface regions of said semiconductor substrate under said extended buffer spacers; depositing a trench-filling dielectric layer over the formed structure surface to a level higher than said masking dielectric layer; and planarizing the formed structure surface using chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) to remove said trench-filling dielectric layer over said masking dielectric layer.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein said semiconductor substrate is a p-type substrate having retrograde p-wells and retrograde n-wells formed.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein said semiconductor substrate had been implanted with doping impurities through a pad-oxide layer or a sacrificing-oxide layer to adjust the threshold-voltage of devices and the additional implant can be performed to form the punch-through stops for devices if needed.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein said multilayer masking structure consisting of said masking dielectric layer on a pad-oxide layer is used in the first embodiment of the present invention.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein said multilayer masking structure consisting of said masking dielectric layer on a conductive layer over a thin gate-oxide layer is used in the second embodiment of the present invention.
 6. The method of claim 1 wherein said extended buffer spacers are preferably made of silicon-oxides deposited by a low-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition (LPCVD) system.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein the depth of said trenches in said semiconductor substrate is between about 2000 to 5000 Angstroms.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein the thickness of said thin thermal-oxide layer formed on said trench surface is between about 50 to 150 Angstroms.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein said field-encroachment implant into said trench surface of said semiconductor substrate and said surface regions of said semiconductor substrate under said extended buffer spacers is preferably performed by a rotated large-tilt-angle implantor.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein said trench-filling dielectric layer is preferably made of silicon-oxides and is preferably deposited by a high-density plasma CVD system.
 11. The method of claim 1 wherein the width of said extended buffer spacers is between about 150 to 400 Angstroms.
 12. The method of claim 1 wherein the dose of said field-encroachment implant using said rotated large-tilt-angle implantor is between about 10¹³ to 10¹⁴ Atoms/cm².
 13. A method of fabricating said semiconductor devices using said trench isolation structure as claimed in the method of claim 1 using said multilayer masking structure as claimed in the method of claim 4 and further comprising the steps of: etching said planarized trench-filling dielectric layer and said extended buffer spacers using said masking dielectric layer as the etching mask; removing selectively said masking dielectric layer using wet-chemical etching or anisotropic dry etching; removing said pad-oxide layer and simultaneously etching the remained portion of said extended buffer spacers to form the capping-dielectric layer; oxidizing the exposed surface of said semiconductor substrate to form a thin gate-oxide layer; depositing a conductive layer over the formed structure surface; and depositing a hard mask layer and patterning said hard mask layer to form the gate lengths of said semiconductor devices and further to form the source/drain diffusion regions of said semiconductor devices using the well-known arts.
 14. The method of claim 13 wherein the depth of said etching of said planarized trench-filling dielectric layer and said extended buffer spacers is approximately equal to the thickness of said masking dielectric layer minus the thickness of said capping-dielectric layer remained over said semiconductor substrate under said extended buffer spacers.
 15. The method of claim 13 wherein said conductive layer can be a doped polycrystalline-silicon layer or a polycide layer or a doped amorphous-silicon layer capped by a silicide layer;
 16. The method of claim 13 wherein said hard mask layer deposited over said conductive layer can be a silicon-nitride layer or a silicon-oxide layer or a composite dielectric layer, deposited preferably by low-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition.
 17. The method of claim 14 wherein said masking dielectric layer is preferably made of silicon-nitride deposited preferably by a low-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition system.
 18. The method of claim 14 wherein said planarized trench-filling dielectric layer is preferably made of silicon-oxides deposited preferably by a high-density plasma chemical-vapor-deposition system.
 19. The method of claim 14 wherein said extended buffer spacers are preferably made of silicon-oxides deposited preferably by a low-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition system and said thickness of said capping-dielectric layer remained is preferably between about 50 to 150 Angstroms.
 20. A method of fabricating said semiconductor devices using said trench isolation structure as claimed in the method of claim 1 using said multilayer masking structure as claimed in the method of claim 5 and further comprising the steps of: etching said planarized trench-filling dielectric layer and said extended buffer spacers using said masking dielectric layer as the etching mask; removing selectively said masking dielectric layer using wet-chemical etching or anisotropic dry etching; depositing a conductive layer over the formed structure surface; and depositing a hard mask layer and patterning said hard mask layer to form the gate lengths of said semiconductor devices and further to form the source/drain diffusion regions of said semiconductor devices using the well-known arts.
 21. The method of claim 20 wherein the depth of said etching of said planarized trench-filling dielectric layer and said extended buffer spacers is approximately equal to the thickness of said masking dielectric layer.
 22. The method of claim 20 wherein said conductive layer can be a doped polycrystalline-silicon layer or a polycide layer or a silicide layer or a metal layer.
 23. The method of claim 20 wherein said hard mask layer deposited over said conductive layer can be a silicon-nitride layer or a silicon-oxide layer or a composite dielectric layer, deposited preferably by low-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition.
 24. The method of claim 20 wherein said planarized trench-filling dielectric layer is preferably made of silicon-oxides deposited preferably by a high-density plasma chemical-vapor-deposition system.
 25. The method of claim 20 wherein said extended buffer spacers are preferably made of silicon-oxides deposited preferably by a low-pressure chemical-vapor-deposition system.
 26. A method of fabricating a trench isolation structure having the extended buffer spacers formed in the isolation regions and on the sidewalls of etched multilayer masking structure for semiconductor devices fabricated in a semiconductor substrate wherein said extended buffer spacers are used to perform the following functions: acting as the etching mask for forming said trenches in said semiconductor substrate; providing the buffer regions for preventing the bird's beak formation in the active regions during the thermal oxidation of the trench surface; offering the buffer regions for field-encroachment implant and further eliminating the surface inversion under said extended buffer spacers and the unwanted surface leakage current due to said trench surface and reducing the narrow-width effects for scaled narrow-width devices; and capping the corners of said trenches and further eliminating the leakage at said comers due to the field emission.
 27. The method of claim 26 wherein said functions are performed by said extended buffer spacers without sacrificing the active area of said active regions for fabricating said semiconductor devices.
 28. The method of claim 26 wherein the device width of said scaled narrow-width devices can be fabricated by using the minimum-feature-size of technology used with less said narrow-width effects. 